


when we meet again

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Idk what i'm doing, M/M, Past Lives, Reincarnation, light fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23416162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: in every life javier realises he lives to protect yuzuruoryuzuvier meeting in different lives
Relationships: Javier Fernández/Yuzuru Hanyu
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	when we meet again

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm back with another yuzuvier fic, yay!
> 
> Um, I honestly put more effort into this one than my first fic (mostly because this was a English assignment but shhh) 
> 
> This whole thing was actually inspired (lightly) by the song 落雪尋花 (Seeking flowers within falling snow) which was on repeat.
> 
> English isn't my first language and I'm currently really tired so I apologise for mistakes and stuff.
> 
> Rated teen for character death, nothing graphic or too graphic but still.

The first time I met you was during a war. Ifound you crying beside your mom’s dead body.

In the chaos, their eyes lock for a millisecond. Time stops; their breath; everything stops — and then an explosion of gunfire, too close, tears apart the connection. Shrapnel whizzes dangerously, shredding body parts and haphazardly massacring innocents with ragged screams. Around them, people are falling like flies, but Javier finds the boy’s eyes again in the same place. He looks oddly calm, almost eerily so. 

He’s sitting by another lifeless body, his grimy hand tightly locked around the woman’s, refusing to let go. Tears cascade unconsciously down his cheeks, revealing pale skin with their sooty streaks.

I can’t leave you alone. I have to take you everywhere so I can protect you.

“We have to go. It’s not safe here.” A loud shattering nearby, a plea for help slaughtered midway through drowns out his voice. 

The boy looks up at him, squinting in disorientation. He’s clearly younger than Javier and looks even more so with the hopelessly lost and dazed look on his face. The tears don’t stop falling. 

Javier sighs, worry making his voice gruff. “Get up. Let’s go. She’s gone.” The last two words seem to break the spell the boy is in, and anger flashes across his face for an instant before it’s replaced by breathtaking grief.

A flame flares in his irises. It’s the inferno, spreading swiftly in their direction, not pausing in its destruction. Menacing footsteps coming at a quick clip from the distance make them both jump, and unexpectedly, the boy gets up without being dragged. He staggers a little and Javier grabs his elbow clumsily, and then they’re running through the war-torn and bloody battlefield, helter-skelter, for their very lives. 

“Don’t let go of my hand,” Javier turns once to say, and the words dry up in his parched throat at the boy’s eyes, still leaking like an unstoppable faucet, heartbroken and wracked with unspeakable mourning. But what stops Javier isn’t the agony in them — it’s the pure, unadulterated worship as the boy tightens his grip urgently on Javier's hand, even without being asked.

But our days together were short. I will protect you no matter what happens.

The drone of an army plane overhead sounds like a death knell, and his heart sinks. There are crushing objects falling from the sky, even before they look up into the blinding glare of the smoggy sun. Javier tightens his right hand on their sack of meagre belongings and food slung over his arm, and his left over Yuzuru's hand he’s barely let go of since they met. But it’s useless — even when they squeeze their eyes shut, the cold and ominous shadow over them grows ever bigger, ever inescapable. His legs have never felt so useless: this he can’t outrun. Not together. 

"Go,” he whispers, sweat running down both their faces and blurring his eyes. 

Yuzuru's brows knit fiercely, in an uncomprehending frown, and his mouth opens — but before Javier can hear his first; last words, he has to reluctantly and forcefully push Yuzuru away, out of harm’s way.

I’m sorry, I failed. I can only hold your hand as it turned cold.

He should have spoken louder. He should have shouted, pushed harder, even if it would hurt Yuzuru, even if Yuzuru didn’t understand, was looking at him with those abandoned and betrayed eyes. But no, Javier knows, it’s his carelessness that killed Yuzuru, his complacence — because Yuzuru had held fast to his hand, refusing to let go even when Javier shook him off desperately; as if he knew exactly what Javier was planning to do. Up until the end, he had refused to let go of the hand Javier had told him to never let go of. Even after. He had been stronger than Javier expected. Stronger than Javier. And now that Javier can finally pry their conjoined hands apart, it’s because Yuzuru is gone too, and he feels like he’s back at the battlefield, the nightmarish night they met, kneeling on the ground and howling, weeping, bashing his fists on the ground over Yuzuru's beloved and lifeless body.  
  
xxx  
  
I turned up to be a cat in my next life. I was abandoned in a box.

Javier sneezes and shivers, the cardboard box that is his temporary shelter doing precious little to protect him from the wind and coming rains. He can smell the petrichor on the breeze, and trembles in trepidation. It may take just one more freezing night before he simply gives up, draws his last breath. He’s hungry — starving; hasn’t had a good meal in longer than he can remember. He grooms his fur a little, but it’s useless — still matted and hopelessly filthy. He closes his eyes and wishes desperately that the owner who abandoned him will come back — at least he’ll have a warm home out of the storm.

This time, you’re the one who found me. You called my name when our eyes met.

“Javi?” His eyes fly open in disbelief — can his wish have come true? But the teenage boy squatting before him isn’t his owner — isn’t even someone he’s seen before… and yet, Javier recognises him. He can’t remember ever meeting this boy in his lifetime, but something in his soul bursts spontaneously into flame. The boy’s cheeks are flushed with healthy colour and excitement, and he’s wearing a hoodie that looks so warm, Javier wants to jump right into his pocket and snuggle there forever. It’s all he can do to sit still, and look cute — well, as cute as he can with his disheveled appearance.

I’m glad you still remember me. I was really happy being able to meet you again.

How do you know my name? The words swirl around Javier's groggy head in bewilderment, but before he can purr them — even if he could communicate his meaning — Yuzuru has picked him up carefully, out of the musty box. His hands are so delicate and warm Javier could cry. He does, warm tears of disbelieving happiness and overwhelming bliss and relief. 

He doesn’t question how he knows Yuzuru's name either. He just does. And it doesn’t matter how, or why — because Yuzuru has tucked him into his sweatshirt pocket and with a reassuring hand anchoring him nestled beneath Yuzuru's thudding heart they’re making their way home in the light drizzle before it starts pouring. 

In Yuzuru's pocket, Javier drifts asleep in security, his last fuzzy thoughts of the way Yuzuru had rubbed their noses together without hesitation, not minding how dirty Javi was. And in that unexpected Eskimo kiss, Javier had remembered their last lifetime. He had remembered everything.

We filled up our lost time before. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for you.

For the next few years, after Yuzuru nursed him back to health and plumpness, they played together, chatted, ate together, slept together — did everything they could together. Technically, they couldn’t communicate, but it never felt that way. It just felt like they could, but never needed words or the tool of language to express the simplicity of the bond between them. Trust and love and comfort. Home. Their time together felt like it would stretch on for ever and ever, never ending days of languid domesticity.

But our life span was too far. I had to leave you first this time.

But when Javier started aging, declining, Yuzuru was still young. He never begged Javier not to go, to leave him, but Javier could see the fear plain in his eyes, the way Yuzuru's eyes would fill with tears even as Javier tried to make him laugh by chasing his ball of yarn. He would turn away and cover his mouth and Javier would hide his rapid breathing, hating his failing body and the life and vigour he could feel slipping away with every day. 

He was an old cat, with no regrets, and he had had the best, most royal life possible — but how could he make Yuzuru understand? He had never lacked for anything since the day Yuzuru found him, because of what good care Yuzuru took of him. It was unbearable to leave Yuzuru because of the difference in their life spans, but he had had the most fulfilling and incredible life any cat could dream of. He trusted Yuzuru knew, though, when they were at the end and Yuzuru was stroking his back mechanically, unable to look at him, the tenderness in his touch speaking everything.  
  
xxx  
  
There was this once time when we grew up not knowing each other. You became a fine man who’s always standing for justice.

It’s staggering when they meet this time in a ramshackle warehouse, both hotheaded twenty somethings. All those lifetimes flood back in a tidal wave, and Javier forgets where and who he is for a dizzying instant. Then harsh reality thrusts him back to earth — he’s the hooligan staring belligerently down the muzzle of Yuzuru's wavering gun, unable to meet the disbelieving, quizzical eyes searching his, pinning him to the ground. His friend, his fellow thug nudges him, bewildered by his loss of composure, something that never happens. 

In his navy police uniform, Yuzuru is extraordinarily handsome, looking more like a model than a cop, sparkling with youth and too bright to look at like a manga character. His eyes are darker than Javier has ever seen them, more filled with betrayal and frustrated yearning. Yuzuru tightens his shaking grip on the gun, fingering the trigger, and Javier's throat runs dry.

And then you found me. Standing on the other side.

The outside world around them swirls and fades into oblivion — Javier's two cronies and Yuzuru's sidekicks, his buddies in this universe. Their eyes lock and it’s like the first time they met, two lifetimes ago. It feels like a century has passed. It has. But the electricity between them — that’s the only thing that’s remained the same, throbbing stronger and more painfully than ever. 

"Javi,” one of Javier's counterparts rudely cuts into their universe, placing his hand on Javier's shoulder; and Yuzuru's eyes snap towards it, then back to Javier, his gaze sharper and filled with fire. Javier gulps at the possessiveness in Yuzuru's brash eyes, plain and honest.

I never thought we’d met like this before. I can’t face you anymore.

He shakes off his friend’s grip, but then Yuzuru tenses up, eyes flickering, and it’s the rifle of a pistol nudging Javier's bicep. Javier's heart stops, all of Yuzuru's deaths flashing before his eyes. No. Not again. It can’t end the same way this time. Not when they’ve only just met. He mutters an order to back down to his partner-in-crime, but can’t look Yuzuru in the eyes as he’s obeyed wordlessly. He’s excruciatingly aware of himself suddenly — his greaser hairdo; his tacky clothes and gold chains; his burning face upon which his entire heart is spelt. He’s not as pristine as Yuzuru, has never been — but this is the first lifetime the dichotomy between them has been so apparent, so vastly uncrossable. They’re literally black and white; water and oil.

I felt so ashamed of myself. I’m sorry I became a bad person.

“Javi, I —“ Yuzuru's unmistakable voice shatters the awkward silence in the dank warehouse — is he cold? Tired? He must be; Javier wishes they had met somewhere warmer, in less damning circumstances. His head snaps up at Javier's wholly unexpected address. He hasn’t heard it in any of their lifetimes, yet. For that, Javier thinks, for his name in Yuzuru's voice — that’s something worth dying for. This lifetime, either, hasn’t been in vain. He doesn’t miss the suspicious looks Yuzuru's subordinates exchange behind his back, the comprehension dawning in their eyes as they put the pieces together. 

"Sir? … Yuzuru?” The taller of the two interrupts, while the other looks less peaceable and ready to fight: but the question, expectation is clear in his tone. 

Javier has never seen Yuzuru look more torn. He looks at the plethora of badges proudly adorning Yuzuru's sleeve, impeccably sewn, and abruptly realises that in this lifetime, Yuzuru has a whole life, a career Javier doesn’t know about. One he must have worked unimaginably hard for, and Javier realises, would throw away in a heartbeat for him. Again, he finds himself at a crossroads, pressed to make a split-second decision.

But at least let me protect you this time. I’ll take this as my punishment.

Now, he clearly sees no reproach in Yuzuru's eyes, none of the judgment and derision that is in his companions’. Only empathy and a hint of sadness. He realises it was himself who projected his deep shame onto Yuzuru's missing eyes, his own inability to reconcile the chasm in their statuses in this life. A cop and wanted felon — they’ll never have a happy ending anyways. As always, like a lightning bolt from the blue, the decision is made for him — with disastrous consequences. 

He overestimated his influence over his men, forgot in the haze of meeting Yuzuru that one of them has been getting more out of control, more bloodthirsty.

As your voice was the last thing I heard before everything turned black.

Javi, I… He keeps the two precious words in mind, uncertain as to what Yuzuru had been about to say, but not minding staying in the limbo of not knowing until their next encounter. I love you. He likes to think that was what Yuzuru wanted to say. Javier replies by not dodging the rapid-fire constellation of bullets which riddle his body immediately after the first shot is fired. 

Of course, he doesn’t let himself die until he sees it miss Yuzuru

**Author's Note:**

> I still feel like there's a lot of room to improve but I'll settle with this for now.
> 
> Title from My I by Jun and The8


End file.
